Review

2023 In Review: Day 15 – Other Recognition

By Jung Bae | January 29, 2024

2023 In Review

1. Introduction + Best Album Art
2. Song of the Year
3. Album of the Year
4. R&B and Soul
5. Rock and Alternative
6. Rap and Hip-hop
7. Dance and Electronic
8. Pop and Ballad
9. Folk and Country
10. Jazz and Blues
11. Crossover and World
12. Best Collaborative Work
13. Rookie Artist of the Year
14. Artist of the Year
15. Other Recognition
16. Concluding Remarks

If this is your first time reading our series, the “Other Recognition” post is where we make up a bunch of “award” categories that you’re not likely to see elsewhere. There are some categories that may be reasonable, but here we run the gamut from the merely atypical to the downright cherry-picked. (Spoiler alert: there’s way more of the latter.) Naturally, the categories change every year, though some like “best title” tend to recur.

All these things caught our fancy for one reason or another this year, and it’s a fun way to recognize even more artists and their work for different kinds of excellence, or in some cases, give a gentle ribbing. Most of these did not appear in the main series, so hopefully you will find a new favorite listen or two out of these selections.

Here they are, in alphabetical order.

Best Ad: NewJeans – Zero

Best Album Description or Promo Text: 87dance – Color Flower Hotel, an entire short story packed into the description. Honorable mention to Hugh Keice – Cabin.

Best Conversion of an Inside Joke: Stella Jang – Orange, You’re Not a Joke to Me!, where Jang recounts how she ended up leaving out orange from the list of colors in “Colors” (what a throwback) and promises that it was nothing personal.

Best Lengthy Title:

Kassy – 사실말야내가말야그게그러니까말이야 (Crush on You), which is disappointingly translated from the original blubbering title.
Unofficialboyy – 그레이 비트 이용권 Now (Gray Beat Usage Coupon Now) (Feat. Be’O)

Best Music Video: No pretense of completeness or objective criteria here – just a list of what caught my eyes in 2023.

Airy – Building
Ateez – Halazia
BSS – 파이팅 해야지 (Fighting) (Feat. Lee Young-ji)
Cherry Boy 17 – 풍각쟁이 (Street Singer) (Feat. Superbee)
Chillin Homie, Able, Iiso, Jinbo, Roh Yoon-ha, Damini, Swings – 라운지에서 (Loungin)
DPR Ian – Peanut Butter & Tears
Fromm – 봄밤에 다시 만나 (Spring Fizz)
J-Tong – 조선 세비지 (Chosun Savage)
Jimin – Set Me Free Pt. 2
Jungkook – Seven (Feat. Latto)
Kid Milli – Honda !
Kim Dong-ryul – 황금가면 (Golden Mask)
Kim Sejeong – Top or Cliff
Kim Sejeong – 항해 (Voyage)
Parkmoonchi – J U S T F U N (Feat. George)
Se So Neon – Kidd
Seventeen – 손오공 (Super)
Shinee – Hard
Taemin – Guilty
TripleS – Rising
V – Slow Dancing
Zior Park – Queen

Best Recreation of 1990s Idol Rapping: Penomeco – X. You could tell me this was straight out of an H.O.T. album and I would need to actually check.

Best Outro Insert: Son Simba – 무명역류 (There Is No Light, So We Go Back) (Feat. Dsel)

Best Sampling Featuring the Original Artist: Paul Blanco – Lake of Love (Feat. Hwanhee), bringing back Hwanhee’s iconic chorus from the Fly to the Sky classic “Sea of Love”.

Biggest Stretch of a Title: Fleeky Bang – Merry Drillstmas (Feat. Polodared)

Cheekiest Title: H1-Key – Low-key Scared but H1-KEY Ready

Group Member Names Most Dedicated to the Bit: Haundae Boyz, a group named after the Busan beach and consisting of Marine City Boy, Haeundae Native, and Marina Boy.

Longest Amount of Time Between Debut and Solo Release: Lee Gheun-hyung (36 years). Lee debuted in 1987 as a guitarist of Little Sky before becoming a celebrated producer and session instrumentalist, and released his first album in 2023.

Longest-Term Comeback:

My Aunt Mary – Right Now, the band’s first release of any kind in 15 years. A legendary comeback.
Byul – Startrail was Byul’s first full-length in 14 years, though she’s had singles and EPs since.
Pudditorium – Episode: Hope was Pudditorium’s first full-length in 12 years.
Cho Deok-bae – 춤추던 달밤 (A Dancing Moonlight Night) was the singer’s first release in 10 years.
Hollow Jan – Confusion was the band’s first release in 9 years.

Longest-Term Self-Remake: D.O. – Living Legend 2023 (Feat. Verbal Jint), following 18 years after the original “Living Legend”. Speaking of VJ, a honorable mention for Verbal Jint – 좋아보여 (You Look Good) 2023 (Feat. 10cm), coming back after 12 years.

Most Bewildering Track: Bikini Cactus – 2tails, a constantly unpredictable mishmash. Bikini Cactus also released a remix called “2tails (Remix for Korean Kids)”, which might be our winner for a “Best Children’s Remix That’s Definitely Not for Children” category.

Most Bewildering Track Entirely in Narration: Verbal Jint – 자격 (The Right) (Feat. Yodayoung), which is like the toddler schoolyard version of Kendrick Lamar’s “We Cry Together”.

Most Buddhist-Infused Hip-hop Album – Youngin – 경 (Soutra)

Most Coincidental Pair of Releases: JeA – 비가 오는 날엔 (Rainy Day) and Boramiyu – 비가 와서 그래 (It’s Not By You) (but literally “It’s Because It’s Raining”), both released on the same day on June 20, 2023. No, it didn’t rain that day in most of the country.

Most Dedication to Alliteration: John0 – Graves, which has six tracks titled “Grapevine”, “Graves”, “Grayscale”, “Graaass”, “Grasp”, and “Grandseason”.

Most Dedication to AI Processing: Park Sae-byul – Fall in Love, which is sung by a male voice trained on Park’s own. In addition to an accomplished music career Park also has a Ph.D. in the computational analysis of music, so it seems to be an area of research interest.

Most Extra Title Translation: Hanroro – 정류장 (The Last Stop of Our Pain), where the original title is simply “Bus Stop”.

Most Thematically Appropriate Concept: Kep1er – Galileo.

Most Unexpected Diss Track from a Non-Musician: Ken Rhee – Fxxk U (Feat. Min Yu-min)

Most Unexpected Idol Pop from a Non-Idol: Forestella – Kool

Most Unexpected Pick-Me Jam from a Non-Musician: Tanaka – 지명해줄래 (Choose Me) (Feat. Vince), though Kim Kyoung-wook could be considered a singer with his Namolla Family releases.

Most Unexpected Spanish Verse: AP Alchemy – Talk Money (Feat. Don Mills)

Most Uplifting Self-Remake: ARTMS – The Carol 3.0, remade by the five Loona members of ARTMS (including Kim Lip and Jinsoul who never got to do a Carol version) after a tumultuous year of legal battles and new beginnings.